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How It Feels When I See You Again
Like you’re dressed as you for Halloween.
Like starting a new season of a TV show, where your favorite character has a different haircut.
Like you’re Mary-Kate dressed as Ashley.
Like you got a tattoo of your face… over your face.
Like seeing your third-grade teacher in tennis shoes.
Like seeing your doctor in falsies.
Like seeing your grandma in a hat.
Like seeing Cher bowling.
Like seeing your dad cry.
Like a street in a strange world.
Maybe it’s the third world.
Maybe it’s your first time around.
Like realizing you’re left-handed.
Like you’re with a guy I’ve never seen and I’m with two women I haven’t seen since.
Like we’re both standing in a hallway of mirrors except every mirror is a stranger, each one a proverbial beard to disguise the shame of our longing and loss and shame.
Like our Venn diagram of memory and agony and heat, its circles intersecting like our coy billows of breath on this brisk Brooklyn night.
